First Week of School - Wemberly and Freebies!

First week. 

I'm done.

Yes... done, not finished. I'm finished too, but I'm done, mostly. Done - like a turkey. Stick a fork in me. 

My calves hurt. My heels hurt. I haven't gotten much sleep. My brain won't stop. BUT, I haven't lost my voice yet. And I lose my voice EVERY year in the first few weeks. 

I always forget how much work it is to get the kids doing my procedures that the kids were doing SO WELL at the end of last year. lol. I know. But I forget EVERY year how hard it is. Please tell me I'm not the only one!

So, here are some things we accomplished this week. I am saving my first week of centers for a different post. But we did them. And it turned out pretty good!

One of the first things I always do every year is our name activity.  This goes along with one of the first books I read of the year.  Chyrsanthemum. Chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemum.

This activity came from one of my favorite scholastic books...

When I taught 2nd and 3rd, I had the kids trace and cut out their own letters, but I knew I couldn't have my 1st graders do that, so I used the dye cut at school to cut out all the letters (and extra!) for them to choose.

I just love how they come out every year!

I also had them make their jerseys. I do this every year. This is my way of learning their numbers really quickly. I keep the jerseys up all year, usually. What do they use their numbers for, you ask? TONS of things! Check out my post on them HERE.  I just use the dye cut machine to make the jerseys and then I write their names and numbers on them... they get to decorate them however they want.

We also did our Time Capsules. This is one of my favorite beginning of year activities to do. It was a little more work getting the kids to fill out the writing part, so I didn't get any pictures of that, but the good news is, I have a post from last year that you can check out HERE to see what the whole thing is about. Download the freebie HERE. 

And I measured them all with the yarn and labeled each piece of yarn with their number, rolled up the time capsule papers, and tied it up with their measurement yarn. 

Download the freebie HERE. 

AND we did Wemberly Worried. This is one of my favorite activities that I use with this book. This activity always turns out SO cute!!

Yes, I busted out the watercolor paints the first week. I can't help it. I love them. We go through A LOT of watercolor paints at my house, and I really like letting the kids at school paint too.

I had them trace the shirt on some purple scrapbooking paper that I had laying around my house. It made it really cute, I think! But you could just do regular purple construction paper too.

I let them either choose white or gray for her head. I couldn't decide which color I wanted, so I did both. Although some were really creative and did the white and added the gray to her! Brilliant kids, I tell ya!

Click HERE to get the tracers and writing papers.


AND.... one more thing. I'd like to thank Teeny for introducing me to these BRILLIANT name tag holders from Really Good Stuff. She has been taunting me teasing me  showing off these name tag holders for about 2 years now, and after her latest post on them I finally broke down and got a class set. Worth it, my friends. Worth it.  They are called Desktop Park and Props. They were delivered today at school and I immediately put them on with velcro and I love them. Already. No questions asked. So, Thank You Teeny, Thank you!  The name tags are a freebie from the summer. You can get them HERE.